Breathing Deep: the Simplest Way to Calm Yourself

Call this Anxiety Management in a jiffy but yes it is true and comes without the fear of side-effects or addiction fears - the things we associate with conventional and modern prescription drugs for anxiety, IBS, depression, obsessive thinking...



Personal Anxiety Management Experiences

I have to confess that I am an anxious soul. I don’t get flustered easily but a sense of uneasiness often overcomes me. I have tried anti-anxiety medications too. Called anxiolytics, these medications are supposed to slow down the release of chemicals that induce a sense of anxiousness. However, I didn’t find these to be too helpful. What has helped is a very simple change I have made to my everyday existence—breathing in a more relaxed manner.

Read about Anxiety Management in the Easiest Way: No Meds, Just Pinch Yourself

Browsing the web, I realized that most of us don’t breathe right. When anxious, this problem worsens as we breathe even more shallowly. I decoded this pattern in my daily life too. Every time I got into an over-thinking mode, my breathing was laboured. I would inhale air in huge bouts and gasps. The consistent smooth breathing pattern was missing. According to researchers, shallow breathing is both a result and cause of anxiety.

Read about Defeating Anxiety Using the Exhale Quick & Strong Approach - It Works!!

It starts when you feel anxious and it also stimulates anxiety symptoms like headaches, acidity or that burning feeling in the stomach. I have put a simple practice into motion. Whenever I feel overworked or getting restless, I shun my work for a minute and start breathing deeper, drawing in more air and exhaling it slowly. The idea is to make your breathing more relaxed. The results are better than depending upon Valium or Prozac.

To take this discussion further, you might want to read about my anxiety management approach during Mornings

LIARS: So Pulled Back Hair is About Minimal Styling?

This realization came up in the most unexpected manner. I have been cleaning my D drive, knowing it is home to documents and files that wouldn’t do justice even to a dustbin. I was going through an images folder and came across my winter pics. I was wearing a cap that was slightly pulled back. As I zoomed in, it seemed that my face appeared tauter than it actually is. A few more images and I realized the reason – the tight cap had pulled back my forehead and skin around the eyebrows, creating the much-adored effect.

How did I make the connection?
You must have read about my morning schedule on this blog. Well, it includes surfing through the physical newspaper. Obviously, being a guy, I pause involuntarily when pages of exotic models and female celebrities show up. Today, I saw a model wearing her hair tightly pulled back. I joined the dots with my morning realization and concluded that the pulled back hair isn’t a fashion statement as such. It is more of a concealer, an illusion that women indulge in to pull back their skin and instantly lift their facial muscles to look younger.

Something similar is done in Forehead Lift or Eyebrow Lift. The surgeon makes small incisions to pull up the facial skin and pins it to a higher point. The excess skin is cut off and the entire face loses about a decade of ageing. This is something I have seen on many women, especially those above the 35+ age bracket and this trick actually helps to flatten the facial skin, making it more regular, tightening-up any frown lines or those troughs around the eyebrows and scowling marks. By now, you must also be getting a drift of why I lose friends when I share my observations…

Why this sudden global fascination with Brown?

I heard my father call out in the morning, “Where are my brown walking shoes?” Somehow, I got the feeling that my sub-conscience has had an overdose of brown in the recent past. However, I could not trace back this feeling to the cause. Later, sitting on the pot, I realized what it was about the colour brown that had occupied my mind. It seems that lately many of the bigger brands are fascinated by the Metallic Brown shade. Every new release, from the Samsung Galaxy 5 to the new Renault Duster and upcoming Mercedes models curated for our marketplace are being showcased in this shade. Why this sudden interest towards the Metallic Brown hue and how come this fashion sensibility seems to have emerged simultaneously across totally unrelated brands?

The Colonial Hangover: Should the British Pay for their past?

I was just reading the riots that have ravaged north African nations. Although the battles are being fought between ethnic communities, including native tribes and Islamic extremists, a thought came to my mind—most of these nations were under occupation. They were either ruled by the British or the Spanish and French. It seems that most colonized nations have a sad history to share and many of them are struggling with their freedom. Colonizing powers that occupied these lands probably didn’t think it was necessary to create a system of governance that would survive when they eventually exited. Or they believed that they would rule forever. The conclusion is that being ruled for hundreds of years can make your thinking and decision making redundant. Do you remember Uma Thurman in Kill Bill?In the first part, when Uma is in hospital, she is badly paralyzed. Her muscles have gone dead due to lying in a hospital bed for the last four years. Something similar has happened to the formerly occupied nations. They seem to have lost the sense that is required to handle freedom or create a democracy. While we can sit here and point out their mistakes, what about the colonial powers that quietly receded to their respective landscapes without taking any responsibility for handicapping their occupied territories. Is there any chance for accountability and ownership for the damage done? This mind sound somewhat over-the-top but there are undeniable studies that conclude to say that even today, many now-independent nations continue to compensate for the losses incurred in terms of a halted progress story during the colonial regime. Another fact that surfaced rather recently about the UK, the center of all things colonial, points to the brown and darker-skinned people outnumbering the real inhabitants - some sort of sweet justice that has taken a long, long time coming?

Hannibal: The TV Series, really cooking humans?

The second season of Hannibal is currently being aired by AXN. I have to confess, I have a liking for things that are gore and somewhat extreme. I loved the movie predecessor to this series, i.e. Silence of the Lambs. I think the direction was simple and thus, so brilliant. Special effects could not have made the impact that actual actors and real backgrounds did. Coming to Hannibal, the TV series was impressive in its first season.